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Closer [CASSETTE]
 
 
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Closer [CASSETTE] [Import]

Joy Division | Format: Audio Cassette
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Audio Cassette (17 Oct 1990)
  • Format: Import
  • Label: Warner Bros / Wea
  • ASIN: B000002LGO
  • Other Editions: Audio CD
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 57,725 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

In retrospect, Closer, the second and final album by this Mancunian band, seems to point straight at singer Ian Curtis's suicide, which happened a few months before it was released. The band's reverberating mesh of minor-key lines and Curtis's bass voice are gloomy enough on their own, and attention to the words reveals references to blacker-than-black stories by JG Ballard and Joseph Conrad; the void and its terrors were splitting Curtis apart from the inside. "I put my trust in you," he sings, and his voice leaves no doubt that that trust has been betrayed. But the music, grim and powerful as it is, points to the direction the surviving members took as New Order, incorporating the mechanical gravity of club rhythms. --Douglas Wolk

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By dynamitekid156 VINE™ VOICE
Format:Audio CD
This is probably my favourite album ever made. It's simply beautiful. Recorded shortly before Ian Curtis' suicide in May 1980 - and ironically turning him into an icon to this day - it features the best work Joy Division ever made in this form. New Order, much as they tried, never quite measured up, even twenty-six years later.

Greatly assisted by the genius of Martin Hannett and his breathtaking production, the band are on fine, fatalistic form. Ian Curtis is at his lyrical best, especially on the closer, 'Decades,' but the real star here is Bernard Sumner. Always an underrated guitar player, (check out the messy solos on early Warsaw tune 'Failures') on this album he unleashes screeches, stabs of pure noise and wiry single note lines over the top of Peter Hook's ever-chiming bass. He also does a sterling job sitting at the keyboard, playing the album out with his wistful yet heartbreaking line in 'Decades' closing passage.

This is an extraordinary, exceptional album that's simultaneously depressing due to its circumstance and uplifting due to its beauty. Any New Order fan, or indeed any fan of music, is missing out if they don't purchase this astonishing, chilling example of why Ian Curtis is still missed.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Still Perfection 10 Sep 2001
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
When i first listened to this album, i spent days with songs like Atrocity Exhibition and Heart And Soul playing on repeat. The music is so well crafted, the lyrics are unbelievable and ian curtis' delivers the whole thing off in a way that is impossible for you not to feel emotionally charged. The change from their early days is evident and i personally feel that it is a change for the better. Sumner's use of synthesizers is atmospheric and Hook's bass playing gets beyond playing chords. The drumming from Morris is tight and gives each song a greater edge. Hell i love all the albums but this is just pure genius... not just by Curtis but by the whole band

The best album of the 80s by far.

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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Despite their primitive sound, Joy Division were always perfect. They created bleak, austere slices of suffering that reflected a band utterly committed to a post-punk aesthetic of artistic salvation. Closer, their finest forty-five minutes, is simultaneously depressing and uplifting, creating an emotional no-man's land that leaves you feeling empty but enlightened.

The music works by creating simple and nagging melodic lines that dig into your subconscious and remain there like splinters. Each note and drum strike is played with absolute conviction as Ian Curtis half-sings/half-talks over the top with his tales of loneliness and suffering, tempered by a belief in salvation ("If you could just see the beauty/There's things I could never describe").

Some of the band's best songs are here. 'Isolation' manages to sound positive despite its theme of dejection. 'Heart and Soul' is hauntingly beautiful. 'Decades' closes the album perfectly with its glassy keyboard line and solemn vocal delivery. Each song acts as a hymn - a religious exorcism of darkness that leaves nothing but a stark white light in its wake.

It's difficult to find a time to actually 'enjoy' Joy Division, but there's a poetry, purity, beauty and sadness to 'Closer' that is incredibly compelling. Overlook at your peril.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Unsurprising
Joy Division's work has been compiled and recompiled just as much as someone like Jimi Hendrix. But it is this blankly-titled 1980 LP, which stands as a true monument to the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by S. Bailey
Astonishing nihilistic masterpiece!!
Unknown Pleasures was like a slap in the face musically for me and i
eagerly awaited this album,i was still relatively young (twenties)
and was always looking out for... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Salazar 27
Step inside yourself
Distended vocals, booming from a man split down the middle, fissuring then eventually finding psychological release through an epileptic illness the finally letting go of his pent... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Dr. Delvis Memphistopheles
Great album but don't buy this version
It's a wonderful album but I've had two copies of this version and neither played on the PC nor would they load to itunes. Read more
Published 23 months ago by C. T. Harnett
A creepy Gothic tomb in audio form
People have talked about the album closing with a trilogy of great songs that feel conceptually connected. I've never understood what they were on about. Read more
Published 23 months ago by BS on parade
Bleak majesty
Beginning with Atrocity Exhibition, and what sounds like the incessant grinding of the death machine, Stephen Morris' martial drumming locks into Bernard Sumner's churning riff in... Read more
Published 24 months ago by J. Jenkins
'diectionless so plain to see'
The music of Joy Division was so different from any other music played back in 1979 and 1980 that it required a name. Read more
Published on 16 Oct 2009 by Deven Gadula
closer cd
Hi very disappointed with product. CD scratched with deep gouges had to pay for it to be playable. Also not new as sleeve totally in wrong way round. Very slow service. Read more
Published on 11 Aug 2009 by ARA CD Store
The Highest Human Achievement
Essential. Peerless. This is the end product of millions of years of evolution. A terrible, cold beauty that stands as testament to the meaninglessness of existence. Read more
Published on 19 Jun 2008 by Sal
song by song review
im editing this after listening to it about 10 times now.

Atrocity Exhiition - like it. curtis sounds like he's in the room with you

Isolation - one of JD's... Read more
Published on 10 April 2008 by Mr. Owen Martin
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